Among a high percentage of normal menopausal women, one of the most annoying symptoms is the so-called “hot flash”, a periodic vaso-motor dysfunction usually caused by a reduction in the body's natural estrogen level. The flash is widely accepted as an unremarkable byproduct of menopause and not considered an illness or disease. Flashes typically taper off within 2-4 years of onset, but for as long as they last, they can be a serious irritation, especially during sleep.
While hot flashes can occur throughout both day and night, this disclosure deals specifically with episodes experienced while a user is reclining in a horizontal position on a typical mattress type bed with top sheet and blanket style body covering. The average flash lasting 2-5 minutes can occur 4-6 times or more per night. They are often severe enough to repeatedly disrupt normal sleep.
The hot flash wakes the sufferer without warning with a sudden and distressingly intense burst of excessive internal body heat. The resulting physical discomfort reaches maximum intensity within seconds of onset. Efforts to find rapid relief (bed covers thrown off, windows open, fans turned on, etc) can be marginally helpful, but often it's too little relief, too late. Additionally, these haphazard efforts to cool off have two significant downsides: 1) they further awaken the sufferer and 2) they set the stage for a second round of misery as the body's internal temperature normalizes just a few minutes later. Steps previously taken to cool off are not easily discontinued as the ‘flash’ ends and the sufferer tries to return to sleep. Open windows, blowing fans, etc, still deliver cool air, creating an equally severe but opposite problem of acute skin chilling, ironically exacerbated by the body's own cooling mechanism of profuse skin perspiration. The vulnerably exposed sufferer finds herself again fully awake—and again, in significant discomfort, shivering from damp skin in what has just become bone chilling night air. This vicious cycle of excessive hot and cold body temperature swings can repeat unabated throughout the night, robbing the sufferer of up to 2-3 hours of normal sleep.
The highly consistent and predictable nature of the menopausal ‘hot flash’ is relevant to this disclosure as the design of this cooling system was conceived and developed specifically to be able to match the time and intensity of the flash attack and thereby effectively neutralize the distress caused. An effective solution is possible by pre-selecting an optimized cooling cycle, which when coupled with a means for minimal effort activation provides instant, automatically timed relief. Ultimately, while not trying to prevent the flash itself, this approach significantly reduces sleep loss without hormone replacement drugs or life style changes.
Existing systems, such as the Bedfan® by Thomkins Research or Bed Fan by Brookstone and is of similar design to Bedfan, provide a low pressure, low volume, low velocity continuous flow rather than a high pressure, high volume high velocity pulsed airflow, and these existing systems are incapable of lifting typical bedding sufficiently so as to provide cooling air flow along the entire length of the sleeper's body, or to further provide additional air flow out through openings in the bedding to cool the neck and face of the sleeper.